ISAF Sailing World Cup Palma - Consolidation and progression on day 3

At the halfway point of ISAF Sailing World Cup Palma – Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mapfre, today’s performances for US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider were about consolidating and moving forward into the next phase of the regatta. Top performances came in the Men’s and Women’s 470, Laser and Finn where single digit race scores were the rule. The qualifying series is complete and racing will now move into the final round, beginning on Thursday.

In the Men’s 470, Stuart McNay (Providence, R.I.) and David Hughes (Miami, Fla.) had a very steady day and added a 5-3 to their overall score to stand in 13th overall. They will advance into the gold fleet for the final series, taking a 13th carryover score. Overall they were pleased with how the day turned out. 'Conditions were a building sea breeze and we made a couple of good decisions,' said McNay, a two-time Olympian. 'Tomorrow, the regatta restarts itself in some ways. We carry our overall place forward as a race score and then there will be five final races on top of that. We are taking on race at a time. This regatta is a good learning experience for us.'

All of the events will use the new scoring and format system.

Anne Haeger (East Troy, Wis.) and Briana Provancha (San Diego, Calif.)* moved up into ninth overall with scores of 2-4 in the Women’s 470. 'We learned that it all comes down to getting off the starting line,' explained Provancha of their turnaround. 'It’s a good mentality and we’ll bring it with us the rest of the quad. Yesterday wasn’t what we wanted and we have been working hard to prove we’re working hard. To go out and have a day like today, I’m really pumped.'

In the Laser class, Charlie Buckingham (Newport Beach, Calif.) also had an outstanding day and added scores of 4-5 to put him into 20th overall for the final series.

'The first two days were pretty rough and highlighted things I need to work on,' he said. 'Today was well within my comfort zone.'

The largest class competing this week with 119 entries, the gold fleet will be half the number, which is still a considerable fleet size. Buckingham is confident in his performance, and explained that he will carry this momentum into Thursday’s two scheduled races. 'You really want to put the last five races together. You learn all the lessons you can in the first three days and then put it all together in the end.'